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Lights out! Trailer

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Based on the acclaim short film, and produced by horror guru James Wan, comes an all too unsettling film. Rebecca, (Teresa Palmer), returns home to find her little brother plagued by an apparition that stalked her as a child. Rebecca must now work to keep all of her friends and family safe from a terrifying force that only appears in the dark.

If you haven’t checked out the original short, be sure to see it on youtube. It’ll creep you out like no other. That being said I’m pretty excited for this movie. If only because the original short director, David F. Sandberg, is in the director’s chair. Hopefully the core concept of his short will successfully translate over to feature length. But let’s get into the trailer itself.

So we open with an almost direct remake to the short. Though this time the monster features glowing eyes. From there we delve into the usual James Wan ghost story: Family plagued by the unexplained, dark family history, a kid is involved. It’s a pretty cookie cutter as far as ghost stories go I feel. One definitely overplayed when it comes to the ghost genre. That being said it does play on a much bigger theme and allegory most movies really play with. In most ghost movies, we expect the dark to signal doom or certain terror. Now the story and the monster depends on darkness. This is fascinating to me, and I’m curious to see how well it plays out in the movie. A similar idea was used in another supernatural film, Darkness Falls. However I have higher hope that this movie will use it better.

As far as the rest of the trailer is concerned we get a few pop out scares, and some red hearings in the shape of mannequins,(which arguably just as creepy). To make a long story short, besides drawing from a great short, and allowing it’s original creator the chance to shine, the trailer doesn’t offer much in terms of something different in the genre. I reserve hope that this movie will circumvent expectation and prove Sandberg to be a unique filmmaker. Check out Lights Out July 22, 2016